Twelve people who were homeless or familiar with life on the streets have died outdoors in Anchorage this spring and summer, most of them in woods and parks. Only one death has been classified as a homicide.

1) There are far more homeless than those living rough or in shelters.

2) The list for AHFC (Alaska Housing Finance Corp.) rental assistance or housing in Anchorage is 10 months long at least.

3) Even last December the state was bragging about all the jobs available [sic] bringing in many individuals and families from Outside directly to the shelters and “camping out”.

4) If a person has a cut artery or broken leg, they can be taken / go to the hospital for treatment. If a person has a psychological crisis, they cannot receive any treatment or support, even by going to a hospital. The only humane way is to have them arrested for “trespassing” which takes them to police HQ for someone to decide if they can go to the hospital. Otherwise, wait for the person in crisis to assault themselves or someone else, then call the police.

5) Inebriates do look after each other, in many cases. This past winter bus riders noticing someone fall or lying down on the pavement would alert the driver who calls community service patrol. Some will ask passersby to call CSP for themselves or their friends. This means that we can all be alert for those in trouble and be accessible for those seeking help. (CSP on speed dial)

6) CSP is a contract service and evidently only available from 2 PM to 10 (?) PM. They aren’t available in the early morning. Fortunately, Anchorage police, if possible, will respond to get people off the street during morning “rush” hour on icy streets.

7) Many homeless and street folks cannot get proper health care. In this country, medical care, Rx are rationed to those with money and knowledge of how to access health system. Or, to those with money and knowledge to force IHS and VA to provide competent service.

Like this:

I hadn’t looked at the ClustrMap in awhile so I was quite pleased to see all the little dots from visitors far from the usual locations (click on the map in the sidebar to see a larger image in a new tab). A nice surprise is that the maps now come with a table of the country of origin– a good way to test one’s geography knowledge by checking the dot location with the country name. This is the country of the IP address used by visitors.

I wish it were easier to visit in reverse, in analog or digital space.

Like this:

The City of Anchorage uses a publicly accessible crime map, Crime Map http://crimemap.muni.org/ which can be quite useful to people moving into the city from rural areas and looking for places to live and work. Like any map, it is only as good as the information or data put into the map. As with the preparedness plans, what-me-worry-we-have-plan, it is up to all of us to ask if maps make sense.

This discussion from the LATimes, Highest crime rate in L.A.? No, just an LAPD map glitch, about their questioning is a good example. It is important to note that “the experts” have to include us, the folks who live and use such information. The mapmakers or government or “them/they” only know what they know. I have found we’re essential to our own lives and can’t pass that responsibility on to others, i.e., public involvement works.

One reason the errors were not caught earlier may be that the LAPD site retains crimes for only six months and allows viewers to see only a seven-day period at a time. The presentation makes some trends, such as the large accumulation of crimes mapped at Civic Center, more difficult to spot. The mistakes spread on the Internet, often compounding the distortion.

EveryBlock, an enterprise that specializes in pulling together local data from many sources, has been praised as a model for the future of journalism, but unlike traditional publications, the site takes no responsibility for the accuracy of its aggregated data. …

But the newfound ease provided by online services can create a false sense of confidence in the computer’s matching ability. Behind the scenes, an algorithm tries to translate unruly street addresses, often drawn from handwritten forms, into the precision of decimal degrees. …

mapping errors could affect policy decisions.

Small changes in how an address is typed — for instance, “68th St.” instead of “W. 68th St.” — can put the point in the wrong neighborhood or even the wrong city. Adding or removing the name of the city or a ZIP Code can lead to differing results. Because of the way they break up the parts of an address, Google and Yahoo sometimes return different locations for addresses typed exactly the same way.

Mistakes could have the effect of masking real crime spikes as well as creating false ones.

I’m forwarding a copy of the LATimes article to the Anchorage Police Dept. as some of the same factors are in the Anchorage map (e.g., only a few days are available).

2009-04-07T03:49 Lt. Parker of APD writes back (thank you) that all their

police data entry systems have the required address field. Many like ours use the police department headquarters as a default for crimes not associated with a specific location. It sure looks like lots of crime is taking place at the police department on those crime maps though! I can assure you that it is only a computer glitch.

From these maps below, when would you suspect (hypothesize) people receive their monthly checks?

Unfortunately, the very large cargo planes aren’t listed by model. Otherwise, Anchorage is supposed to be the busiest international cargo hub in the US. See Ted Stevens Airport & HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza, a.k.a., bird flu)

Martin Moore has been coming to a borrowed Anchorage office for the past few months, making phone calls, writing letters, and setting up meetings with state officials advocating help with his village’s high fuel costs.

As mentioned in the comments at Mudflats, there are several communities in the Wade Hampton census area also in dire straits. There was a community meeting yesterday that included these other Villages, too. I hope to have more specifics later.

In the meantime, use the site search tags below for background information.

Before Google Earth and Terraserver and the rest was the PARC research lab of Xerox (inventor of the mouse and of GUI, I believe). They no longer run the map.

I still prefer their perspective to depict spatial relationships in many contexts. Here is plotted Fairbanks Alaska (red square), the Yukon River in Alaska, the International Dateline (purple line), and the rest of the US.

Just a step over the dateline, where it passes closest to Alaska, is Russia. Juneau is about 3 meridians east. Wasilla is about the lower west corner of the red square.

Compare Alaska to lower 48 distances

This is the best map to show the relationship of Alaska to the lower 48. National geographic has overlaid Alaska such that it demonstrates Alaska stretches from Jacksonville FL to San Francisco CA. I’ve added markers for Russia and Little Diomede, Bethel, Wasilla, and Juneau.

The National Geographic Society’s incorporation of illustration with relief cartography portrays the grandeur and uniqueness of the Alaskan landscape in relation to towns, highways, and parks. Regarded as pioneering map illustrators, the National Geographic Society frequently adopts this techniques in maps produced as part of its exploration studies. This Alaska map was included as a supplement to the May 1994 issue of the National Geographic magazine.

Like this:

[revised] 2008-10-20 Finally, ADN had background on Todd Palin’s family, Yup’ik ties give Palins unique Alaska connection NATIVE: Grandmother on Todd’s side calls the governor a ‘special gal.’ By TOM KIZZIA tkizzia@adn.com Published: October 19th, 2008 11:20 PM. Anthropologically or historically, this background information is important because it reflects a lot of Alaskan history and because Todd’s wife is running for Vice-President. Unfortunately, a lot of Sarah Palin’s supporters and Palin herself have used Todd’s grandmother as a qualification for political office. The argument Palin has used is that she automatically has the best interests of Alaska Native/American Indian, rural Alaska, and tribal issues because of her husband’s family. Grandmothers are important in the 2008 election, whether Sen. Obama’s or Gov. Palin’s in-laws. But actions rather than inheritance are clearer guides to integrity, in my opinion. Assuming that inheritance determines behavior is called “biological determinism” and is well demonstrated as false as any other racist assumption.

[additions]
After last Friday, there is no point in trying to correct what others in the country say about our native people in the Yukon Kuskokwim Nushagak region. Occasionally in the past I did try to inform news writers about how to improve their stories (professional journalists really ought to know how to look up answers). Even in Alaska, most people don’t know rural Alaska (because most people live in Anchorage).

I don’t know Todd Palin or his family. I read he was born in Dillingham along the Nushagak River of Bristol Bay; one of his great(?)grandparents is of Yup’ik heritage. [Todd’s grandmother grew up in a traditional Yup’ik Eskimo house in Bristol Bay and accompanied Sarah in her race for governor as she sought support from … http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/08/29/CAMPAIGN_PALIN_odds.html]
As a child, he moved to Wasilla, where he met Sarah first during high school.

I just ran across this news story about the Yup’ik people in Eek, along the Kuskokwim River of Kuskokwim Bay. It is well written and gives a valid characterization of how Eskimo and Gussack (non-Eskimo, from the Russian), that is, Alaska Native and non-Alaska Native people, live in remote Alaska today.

2008sep01 I have a listing of various teacher blogs from those teaching and learning in the rural Alaska, Tundra Teachers- http://cerebraloddjobs.edublogs.org/2007/11/10/tundra-teachers/ Some post more regularly than others. Most bloggers are new to teaching and Alaska, but the ones written by long-time Alaskans and Alaska Native teachers are particularly interesting.

Rural_Determination_summary_KARAC_meetingbook-FINAL-www.doi.gov (pdf file) The material below is taken from the regional advisory council packets. Sections related to rural determination have …Continue reading →